Pakistan’s geography makes it extremely vulnerable to climate change: expert

PESHAWAR: Highly vulnerable to climate change vulnerabilities, Pakistan was also facing a looming threat to an ecological and socioeconomic balances besides shortage of water resources owing to rising of temperature and fast melting of glaciers, affecting people.

The rise of global temperatures and greenhouses gas emissions have put Pakistan under a heightening risk of disasters, including heatwaves, droughts, floods, and melting glaciers.

“Pakistan is highly susceptible to climate change- induced weather patterns including rising temperatures, unpredictable rains and floods besides fast melting of glaciers in Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that could be tackled through whopping plantation,” said Tauheedul Haq, former conservator of KP Forest Department while talking to APP on Sunday.

He said Pakistan was a unique country where over 7,253 glaciers were providing fresh water supplies to millions of people for irrigation, drinking and industrial purposes and it preservation was imperative for agriculture growth and economic prosperity. Mostly located in Himalaya, Hindukush and Karakorum regions of Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said these glaciers were a distinctive source of freshwater for agriculture, irrigation, drinking and industrial supplies to people, agriculturists, farmers and industrialists living in those regions and downstream up to Karachi through river Indus.

Besides 2,253 mighty, medium and small glaciers, including Baltoro (63km), Biafo (67km), Batura (57km) found in Gilgit Baltistan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Upper Chitral district was blessed with around 500 glaciers especially at Trichmir mountains ranges providing freshwater to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh provinces through rivers Swat, Panjokra, Kabul and Indus throughout the year.

He said Pakistan contains more glaciers than any other parts of earth outside of the polar region. “Our irrigation network has largely depended on these glaciers that continuously re-charge our irrigated system in all provinces,’ said Tauheedul Haq.

He said Pakistan was heading towards a situation of water shortage and food insecurity due to fast melting of glaciers, poor investment in agriculture, flooding, rapid population growth and water loss.

According to National Water Policy 2018, the per capita surface water availability has declined from 5,260 cubic meters per year in 1951 to around 1,000 cubic meters in 2016 and this quantity was likely to further drop to about 860 cubic meters in next few years, marking our transition from a “water stressed” to a “water scarce” country.

The policy disclosed that the minimum water requirement to avoid food and health implications of water scarcity was 1,000 cubic meters per capita per year and the situation underlined the need for rapid development and management of the country’s water resources especially completion of construction of dams of Mohmand and Diamir Bhasha to conserve the precious commodities for future generation.

Tauheed said the changing and unpredictable precipitation patterns may cause serious consequences, including flash floods in the north of Pakistan as we have seen last year’s flooding and increasingly prolonged droughts in the southern parts of the country. With glaciers retreat, he said more glacial lakes would form like that of Atabad lake in Gilgit Baltistan besides increasing the risk of Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF).

“The weather conditions have changed as hot weather was being witnessed even in March and April that was not so decades before in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to lack of rains and snowfalls besides high deforestation,” he said.

The National Forest Policy 2015 has revealed that Pakistan was losing about 27,000 hectares of forests per year. The policy said forest resources were under tremendous pressure mostly in community and private-owned natural forests in Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where deforestation was making negative impact on agriculture yield and quality of water at outlets besides triggering land degradation and loss of biodiversity. “Pakistan’s average annual rainfall was ranging between 400milimeter (mm) to 1000mm while snowfall ranged about 60 inch that could be increased by bring more areas under forestry cover especially in high a pasture and glaciers zones,” he said.

He said that the early start of summer season and subsequently heat waves lead to fast melting of glaciers, resulting in flooding and waste of fresh water.

Tauheed said forestry cover in the country was around five percent, which was low compared to 25percent international standard and bringing mountainous areas under afforestation through farm forestry and enclosures would help minimize melting of glaciers in northern Pakistan.

Ibrahim Khan, Deputy Project Director, 10 billion trees afforestation project said that numerous measures were taken for maintaining ecological balance and water resources through sustainable growth and preservation of forest resources.

He said all concerned departments were taken on board for preempting fire incidents in forest due to heatwave during summer. He said Forest Amendment Bill 2022 was enacted for sustainable growth and protection of the green gold.

As per the law, the government would also take necessary measures for protection of forest carbon rights and to declare any forest or nearby area as national park.

He said that 690.16 million plants including 352 million through 6081 enclosures and 337.06 million through farm forestry were planted under the 10 billion trees afforestation project till April 30, 2023.

Ibrahim said the provincial climate change policy 2016, range land policy, and REDD plus strategy have been implemented in the province.

He said federal government had allocated Rs 3,950 million for three ongoing schemes including Rs 26.5 million for capacity building on water quality and monitoring and SDG (6.1), Rs 20.95 million for Climate Resilient Urban Human Settlements Unit and Rs 3,902.55 million for a revised project of Up-scaling of Green Pakistan Programme in budget 2023-24.

He said Rs 100 million was allocated for Pakistan Bio-safety Clearing House (Pak-BCH) for GMOs Regulation, Rs 2,800 million for a national programme for the improvement of watercourses phase-II, and Rs. 900 million for the national programme for enhancing the commend area in Barani areas of Pakistan besides Rs. 700 million for the promotion of olive cultivation on a commercial scale. He said these projects on completion would help mitigate adverse effects of climate change and control temperature.